by Ryan Hyatt
Operation Park Walk began on Sunday, February 12, 2023, and it proved to be unlike any offensive in history that Ray knew. This had as much to do with the Americans’ direct objectives to secure oil as it did the revolutionary expedience through which the Liberators’ capabilities allowed the war to be fought.
Previous twenty-first century American forays into the Middle East came with promises of freedom and progress for conquered peoples. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example, was heralded at that time as a necessary regime change to usurp a dangerous tyrant who was supposedly arming his nation with weapons of mass destruction. The Americans came to replace that government with a more peaceful democratic one, trying to create a safer place for Iraqis and the world. The fact that Iraq had the world’s second largest oil reserves didn’t factor into their decision to meddle, at least according to the American administration at the time. Oil supposedly had nothing to do with it. Subsequently, after American occupational forces arrived, weapons of mass destruction were never found, but the United States did secure access to a vast energy supply, at least for a while, which it utilized through trade agreements.
Within twenty years, however, American leaders felt compelled to embark on another adventure into the Middle East. The geo-political landscape had greatly changed since Iraq, and in many ways the world was a darker and more desperate place. A race clearly was underway among superpowers to secure the planet’s depleting natural resources. The American position was particularly critical, since its economy was in ruins, its military overextended in hotspots around the world. There was little opportunity to focus on domestic problems, it seemed, and following the upsurge of terror attacks, the notion of American national security had become a figment of that country’s past prosperity.
Considering this vulnerability, Ray noticed American leaders made little pretense of a noble enterprise when they authorized the invasion of Iran. That nation held the world’s fourth largest oil reserves. Once tapped, it soon became public knowledge the United States hoped to buy enough time to develop better methods to access its own oil reserves deep beneath the Rocky Mountains, or perhaps reduce demand for oil temporarily or entirely as new energy methods were harnessed, especially if the Eco-Socialists in Congress ever had their say.
Quickly, some of Ray’s worst suspicions of the mission proved correct. The Americans came to Iran in the name of righting the wrongs of Iran’s pre-emptive strike against its service men and women, but really Iran was just trying to thwart an attack, and the Americans always were coming for precious energy. American leaders hoped to jumpstart their floundering economy at home with more cheap fuel from abroad and provide themselves an advantage over their rivals in the process. In addition, Ray noticed throughout the media that some American leaders hoped to reclaim their nation’s lost glory and eminence as the greatest superpower.
As a result, in ‘liberating’ Iran Ray wasn’t told to focus on imposing freedom-loving values on Iranians, as they once tried with Iraqis in Iraq. The objective was never to erect an endless array of Burger Master fast-food chains or Super Duper box stores or other famous business monuments in that ancient country. As the war was waged, it became clear to Ray that the federal government and the corporations that backed it couldn’t afford that kind of investment. Operation Park Walk never purported to be a humanitarian mission, as some arrogant leaders once said of the endeavor in Baghdad. The Americans came, not to offer Iranians a hardy helping of democratic capitalism, but to plunder their oil supplies, plain and simple. They intended to recoup costs from Operation Park Walk from taxes on Iranian oil imported to the United States and secure an energy boost over rivals like China and Russia for another decade.
Ray and his men began to understand the brutal scope of their mission as their Liberators homed in on the enemy nation. While numerous facets of the campaign were still secret, to be revealed on a need-to-know basis, the Eagle Scouts reviewed the stark details for the first stage of the campaign during their flight across the planet.
Soon, the war’s billions of onlookers also would know why the arrival of the Liberators in the Middle East was so frightening. With the hulking monsters, war was taking a new form to easily outmatch the terror in which the world perhaps had become a little too comfortable and passive in allowing. With the arrival of the Liberators, the Americans made it known they were no longer trying to play fair, gain influence or appease the world’s troublemakers. They were in it to crush them.
Iran was home to one of the oldest continuous civilizations since a dynasty first formed there in 2800 BCE. At 636,372 square miles, its area was slightly larger than the state of Alaska. More than seven million of the nation’s 80 million people lived in Tehran. All of these facts Captain Ray Salvatore recalled as he flew Mama’s Boy One toward the capital.
Persia, as Iran used to be called, was once home to a vast ancient empire until conquered by the Westerner Alexander the Great and his Greek army in 331 BCE. Persian art, literature, medicine, mathematics and philosophy blossomed into major elements of Islamic civilization when Persia was re-conquered in 652 by Muslims. Prosperity continued until 1218, when Genghis Khan and the Mongols invaded, killing 10 to 15 million people and turning Persian streets into ‘rivers of blood,’ according to historians. Some estimated Iran’s population didn’t reach pre-Mongol levels until the twentieth century.
The emergence of the Safavid Dynasty in 1501 marked a major turning point for Islamic history, when Shi’a became the official religion of a new great empire. That power dwindled in subsequent centuries, culminating with more interventions by the West in modern times. Persia became a constitutional monarchy in 1906, and the name Iran, which roughly means ‘land of the Aryans,’ started to be used internationally to designate the country in 1935. Iran officially became an Islamic Republic after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, although it in fact operated as an authoritarian regime since.
That was the majority of what Ray knew of his enemy, most of it obtained from online searches.
Ray descended into Iran from the north over the Caspian Sea, and he gazed out of his cockpit, awed by the huge landlocked lake. He asked ACE to point out the country’s immediate neighbors. ACE indicated Azerbaijan to the right, Turkmenistan to the left, both out of sight.
Ray always felt a little beside himself when first deployed on combat missions. They often led him to ancient and exotic places so unlike his native Phoenix, an infant city by world standards. The experience of flying into enemy territory inside a Liberator was more video game than visceral, but Ray wasn’t fooled by the illusion, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this time he was the barbarian, unraveling societies through destruction which often took mankind thousands of years to build.
Ray felt mildly nauseated as he approached Iran, and he suppressed a sudden impulse to abort his mission, focusing on the immediate objective.
To the east Iran was bordered by Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, ACE indicated. To the west and northwest Iran was bordered by Iraq and Turkey, which Ray also was unable to see.
Iran was mountainous, and this at least was apparent to Ray as he traversed through its northern air space. The arid landscape, comparable to Phoenix, was dominated by rugged ranges to the north and west, which was also the most populous part of the nation. These ranges separated a series of less-inhabited basins in the country’s interior.
Tehran was located less than one-hundred miles south of the Caspian Sea, between which there existed a unique subtropical climate. This lush green area between water and city reminded Ray of Southern California as he closed in on his target.
According to American intelligence reports, Iran’s leaders were preparing for their greatest city to become a war zone, and judging by what Ray saw from his cockpit, the enemy indeed wished to welcome the Americans with hell. Ray inverted his bird to get a better view of the military formations. He saw thousands of dots superimposed over his shield, a vast array of anti
-aircraft and tank batteries clustered on street corners and major boulevards. He zeroed in on some, and his sensors, along with incoming satellite and drone data, confirmed most military groups were accompanied by civilians.
Mothers seated on tops of tanks and surrounded by anti-aircraft guns chanted and waved signs like “WE WILL CRUSH AMERICA UNDER OUR FEET,” and “ISRAEL MUST BE WIPED OFF THE MAP.” Meanwhile, children dangled from turrets, played and laughed, fingers pointed at Ray’s high-flying aircraft. It was hard to say whether these people were there by their own volition or being held as hostages. Next to them stood armed guards and some brandished their weapons, but the climate appeared to be too festive to make a definitive determination. In many ways the Iranian citizens in view behaved as if a holiday were about to commence, not Armageddon.
Maybe they believe they’re going to be liberated after all…
However, the fact so many civilians were in such close proximity to so many anti-aircraft guns and tanks meant it was going to be difficult to attack. Apparently the regime was as desperate to retain power as the Americans were to flex theirs. While Iran’s regular armies numbered more than half a million, its government boasted more than twelve million able-bodied men and women to be called for active duty to defend their homeland if necessary. Well, it was necessary. The number of potential conscripts, then, was almost twenty percent of Iran’s total population of eighty million. For all Ray knew, the whole country was being asked to stand up and fight.
Ray received the go-ahead from Command, which also served as a fueling and rearming depot outside Istanbul, Turkey. He passed the word on to his Eagle Scouts, positioned near cities, nuclear facilities and oil refineries also in the north. Meanwhile, the Boy and Cub Scouts were poised to attack in western and southern Iran, respectively.
All three squadrons were in place, with permission to fire.
“Playtime is over,” Ray said to his men over his headset. “Stick to your primary targets, and be sure to use your tear gas. There are lots of distractions out there, so let me know if you run into trouble. Have I made myself clear?”
Captain Ray Salvatore heard a resounding ‘Yes, sir!’ He wished his men well, and then he turned his attention to ACE.
“How’s Daddy’s Girl doing?” he said. “Ready to be a good little helper?”
“YES, SIR!” ACE said. “READY TO KICK SOME ASS AND TAKE SOME NAMES!”
“By all means, let’s do so.”
Within the first day of Operation Park Walk, sixty percent of total Iranian air, land and naval forces were rendered useless. The United States might have had a clean sweep of the entire enemy military had it not been that many armaments weren’t destroyed immediately because they remained blocked by civilians.
The bulk of Iran’s navy, headquartered at Bandar-e Abbas and comprised mainly of a few destroyers and frigates, was annihilated within the first three minutes of combat by a lone Mama’s Boy dispatched by the Cub Scouts.
Next went the Iranian air force. Nearly all four hundred of its fighter planes were permanently grounded within three hours of the assault. These aircraft, mostly American-made F-14s and Soviet-made MiG 29s, were sold before the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when both nations were still on cozy terms with the Shah and his government. In fact the war birds were so old, and the economic sanctions against Iran since the Revolution so significant, that American intelligence analysts believed it unlikely the regime had the spare parts or serviceability necessary to use most of their aircraft for combat.
Thanks to the destructiveness of the Liberators, this proved a moot concern. With the invasion underway, approximately three dozen Iranian F-14s and MiGs managed to scramble into the sky, most from Mehrabad, Shiraz and Tabriz air bases. Of these war planes, six locked on to Mama’s Boys before they were destroyed. At one point during the dogfights, the Captain’s aircraft was singled out, chased by several bogies. He fell back to the Caspian Sea, where his Mama’s Boy went into aqua mode, submerged under water and re-emerged when his pursuers passed, and he annihilated all of them.
With the United States gaining quick air superiority, grounding the rest of Iran’s air force was easy. Eighteen powerful bombs, each dropped from well-placed Mama’s Boys, were all that was necessary to turn its eighteen major air bases into smoldering ruins.
Disassembling Iran’s land forces proved to be more challenging. Mama’s Boys arriving at army bases found them largely abandoned. Command by this time was already aware that thousands of the regime’s tanks and artillery pieces were dispersed in urban areas, littered with civilians, to be called to action at some indefinite point in the future.
Still unaccounted and of concern, however, for were countless hand-held rocket launchers the Iranian army was thought to have in circulation. These weapons were small and light enough in many cases that they could be transported by an individual person. They were also highly dangerous. It was assumed they were stashed inside government buildings or warehouses to be used by regime loyalists at their discretion to launch a counterattack or guerilla war against occupying forces.
Coincidentally, the rocket launchers posed the only real significant threat to Americans in Iran, for with the right coordination, Ray and his men knew they could be used to successfully take out a Liberator. Although Liberators could absorb a direct hit from most field weapons, when the Liberators were in sentinel mode they were vulnerable to concentrated fire in particular anatomical areas, such as the throat, joints, even the hands. Thus, it was possible for them to buckle under rare conditions during certain attacks.
For the Captain, it was critical the weaknesses of America’s super soldiers remained as tightly under wraps as possible, not only for the safety of his men, but the success of their mission. His and four other Liberators from the Eagle Scouts were assigned detail over Tehran with the objective of eradicating as much of the Iranian military presence there possible. While this was not simple due to the civilian obstructions, the Captain, with his tactical skill, was able to pick apart much of the adversary’s resistance during the first day of battle.
They began by removing the most dangerous obstacles first, which were the active anti-aircraft artillery pieces positioned along the outskirts of the capital, clear of civilians because they were in use. The Mama’s Boys targeted these clusters with Hellfire missiles. While the air was free of immediate threats, the Eagle Scouts continued with the destruction of their individually-assigned targets. Ray’s specific task was to take out the Iranian military headquarters, the equivalent of that nation’s Pentagon. One bomb, and it was gone.
At that point the Captain assumed a supervisory and support role, which he had for the remainder of the conflict. Taking refuge on a mountain precipice in the Albourz Protected Area, north of Tehran, Ray and his lone standing Liberator had a commanding view of the capital. From this perch, he watched the American victory unfold.
Refugees fled in mass in all directions. Many of them were likely government employees whose livelihoods were made by supporting the regime. Now they ran for their lives.
Ray eavesdropped on Iranian military radio channels, which Daddy’s Girl translated for him from Persian to English.
The Ayatollah, also known as the Supreme Leader, the regime’s religious figurehead, was hiding out in a prominent mosque named after a predecessor. From there, on public frequencies, he led a propaganda campaign already underway to retain the heart and minds of his people. The Supreme Leader denounced the ‘Angels of Death’ laying waste to his homeland and promised that the American and Israeli ‘satanic conspirators’ behind the attacks would get the fate they deserved. He urged all Iranians to embrace a ‘spiritual struggle’ between the government’s forces of ‘good’ and the government of the infidel invaders, which of course was ‘evil.’
After listening for a while, half amused, half exhausted, Ray tuned out. He reflected on the irony of such triumphant rhetoric and a breathtaking view of a city headed for ruin, with plumes of smoke spiraling up
and away toward a rising moon and stars above.
American battle plans didn’t call for the destruction of mosques or the killing of religious figures, despite what the enemy said. When it was convenient, the United States wished to win the public relations aspect of the war, and that generally meant not inciting mobs. After all, the Americans came for resources, not a jihad.
But in the final analysis, the Iranians were free to keep their nation in peace or in tatters. It was theirs either way.
Stay or go, run or hide, cry or fight, Ray thought. It doesn’t matter to us. The key to our success, as you will see, hinges on our indifference, however long it lasts.
Ray suddenly remembered part of his conversation with Humphrey, about how he and his men were going to be tested. Tears welled up in his eyes. He started to understand. Insulated in his cocoon of invincibility, a tall and mighty knight overlooking a strange land, Ray felt alone.
Scared.
Wrong.
CHAPTER 4
Operation Park Walk was so named not only metaphorically for the easy victory the United States hoped to achieve over Iran, but also literally for the military strategy employed to secure the nation. Once the Liberators hit their primary targets, their task was to take positions within the country’s major urban parks. These places of refuge were where the invading troops were to set up camp and from which they were to stage assaults against the regime.
Finally, it was hoped the parks also would serve as a safe haven and focal point for a grassroots Iranian revolution. The country had long entrenched dissident groups, such as the Green Movement, which tried and failed in the first decades of the twenty-first century to usurp the regime. These men and women were sympathetic to American ideals and, likewise, there were American leaders sympathetic to them.
The American military strategy hinged on the fact that the number of Iranian dissidents was so significant that the arrival of the Liberators was all it would take for suppressed citizens to feel emboldened enough to topple their government, with minimal American financial and military risk. On a public relations level, it might also give the conquest greater legitimacy in the eyes of the world. In the first month of the operation at least, the Americans had reason to believe the gamble would pay off.